Longitudinal Evidence on Wealth Inequality: Supplemental Data
A Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis working paper presents supplemental empirical evidence and methodological details on wealth inequality. The document includes additional tables and figures supporting the main paper's findings on wealth concentration and returns.
Unpacking Wealth Concentration and Returns
The supplemental material provides detailed cross-sectional statistics for households in Norway from 1993 to 2019, including population shares by age and descriptive statistics for various wealth components such as safe assets, public and private equity, housing, and debt.
It highlights significant wealth concentration, with the top 0.1% holding substantial shares of public and private equity, and overall net wealth.
The document also presents individual and household-level wealth returns for different asset classes between 2005 and 2019, detailing mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis.
For comparative analysis, the paper includes similar sample statistics and concentration figures derived from the US Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data, allowing for cross-country insights into wealth distribution patterns.
Visualizing Portfolio Dynamics and Data Methods
Beyond tabular data, the supplemental material includes numerous figures illustrating aggregate time series and cross-sectional moments of wealth distribution.
These visuals cover aspects such as house prices and rental equivalence in Norway, time series of wealth and concentration, and detailed portfolio composition over both the life cycle and the wealth distribution for Norway and the United States.
Furthermore, the document outlines the methodologies employed for data imputation, specifically addressing missing data using gradient boosting regression and a two-step imputation method for inter vivos gifts, ensuring transparency and robustness of the underlying data analysis.
Granular Detail, Robust Foundations
This supplemental material is crucial for understanding the granular empirical foundations of the main working paper.
It offers extensive data and visual evidence that substantiates the core arguments regarding wealth inequality and its drivers.
By detailing the methodological approaches, the document enhances research transparency and provides a robust basis for further academic scrutiny.